It took one weekend per side and another for the back corners. And we have 20+ hours into the bumpers but they look great, forgot the camera but will post some by the end of the week-end!

Better add this before I forget too.

We had 3 10'x5' sheets of steel sheared in halve, then those 6 pieces were bent at 90deg for the bottom inch (to stiffen the sheets when they were mounted). And yes they are very stiff! The cost for sides were $470 and were .090-.110 thick....not sure what the gauge # is.

The Back corners were 28" then bent for 12" more 6' long. We chiseled out the rivets along the roof and slid the sheet under the roof tin, transferred holes and re-riveted! We needed to cut a "pie" out on the sides so the angle matched the door and lined up with the roof. We then welded the pie together (our only welding on the bus). These sheets were $40 and a dog bite, yup the fabricator bending the steel for us, his dog got me on the back of the leg, but I'm fine though!

The Bumpers are made of 3/16th steel plate. they were made into C channel 2"x14"x2" for a cost of $280. We then "pied", heated, bent and welded the corners. We welded bolts in position on the backside to make it a bolt-less bumper. I then brought them to work ( a machine shop) set them up on a boring mill and put all our holes in. We're still pissing with the bumpers a bit but they look a hell of a lot better than the original guard rail style bumpers that were in it!

And to date we are at 1100 rivets used with another 250 piece box coming!

And have the automotive paint, primer, activator and thinner ordered up. Going to try to finish sanding, wash, wipe clean with thinner, mask and spot spray our primer on this week end. Leaving the "real" paint job for next week end (Canadas May 2-4 long week end) Paint, primer and supplies came to just shy of $1000. Cheaper than we had thought! SO hopefully I'll figure out how to post picts up here again soon and in a few weeks you'll get to finally see the finished product! 3 1/2 years in the making!

Gonna paint the roof white tomorrow and the white stripes down the side, hopefully mask some more this week and paint the silver stripe. Then we can knock out the burgandy next week-end and start to put it all back together again

That picture was taken in one of Eldoras camp grounds. For the Wolrd 100. Race was rained out for Saturday night but they had it Sunday afternoon. This was Sunday morning. the front bumper stopped 3 feet from the highway. We sat on the bus saturday night and watch some movies, it rained so much our cooler chests were floating outside! That is why we installed truck horns thru the front bumper now!